Bereft: Demise

22 | Of Betrayal's Indelible Sting

The metal steps rattled in their brackets as my feet thumped up their solid lengths. I ascended as quickly as I could with the cat pressed to my chest. Those I passed paused to watch my hasty climb, muttering to one another behind cupped hands. I didn't hear what was said, but that was probably for the best.

When I reached the landing adjoined to Peroth's office, I lowered the feline to the floor. It sat, flicking bored eyes in my direction as it stretched its sizable paws and proceeded to meow. I knocked upon the door, my knuckles rapping the section of wood just above the written inscription.

My eyes fell unbidden upon the solemn engraving, absorbing the myriads of messages and meanings such an ambiguous statement could mean. 

I knocked until my knuckles turning red from my effort. I didn't dare enter without permission, not after what I'd seen the last time I had done so. 

Breathless, I called out, "P-Peroth!"

After another moment of impatient knocking, the handle jerked and the door jumped aside. Expelling my thanks in a gusty breath, I went to tell the Sin he was needed in the library, that there was a vampire losing his mind amongst those utterly useless rows—but it wasn't Peroth glaring at me from the other side of the threshold. 

"What, by God's green kingdom," Amoroth drawled, standing with one of her small fists balanced upon her hip with the other leaned upon the door's oak frame. "Are you doing here?" 

The Sin of Lust was just as I remembered her, imperious and sharp-tongued with her glossed lips drawn into a well-satisfied smirk. She was dressed in a black suit, the jacket missing from her shoulders and the top buttons of the long-sleeved blouse undone far enough to show cleavage. Diamonds and platinum glittered upon her throat and fingers, dripping from her ears buried in the curls of her chestnut hair.

"You!" I accused, forgetting about the mad vampire and my rush to find Peroth. "You!"

In Verweald, I had thought the Sin of Lust and I had come to an uneasy alliance—but the woman had proven that belief false when she sold Darius and me out to Balthier. I hadn't seen her since, and I had been more than ready to never see Amoroth again.

Here she was, standing in Peroth's doorway with absolute nonchalance—not even wearing her shoes. What was she doing here?

I glowered until I felt the heat of my anger bathe my face and incite the shadow roving through my thoughts. Amoroth was the reason I had been forced from my home, the reason I had abandoned everything I owned in Verweald and was now hiding like a scared dog in the twisted house of a soul-eating demon.

I threw my fist at the woman's face. Amoroth's eyes grew wide just before it collided with her nose.

"Ow!" I hollered, hopping in place as I clutched my throbbing fist. "My God, your face is like concrete—!"

The Sin had gone still as stone, as unmoved by my attack as she was by my vitric stare. A bead of blood trickled from her left nostril, cresting the swell of her upper lip. Her tongue swept over the dark trail, painting the shined skin, staining the pearlescent perfection of her white teeth.

"You never disappoint, Gaspard," Amoroth intoned as the blood continued to well and flow from her nostril, dripping from her lip to her chin. The chill mounted, weaving its frost through my skin and veins. 

The scrape of my shoe moving upon the cold floor was loud in the sudden silence. Somewhere deeper in the room came the insouciant static of a blathering television.